


a single closed eye: in thirteen parts

by annegirlblythe



Series: A Coda for Violet [1]
Category: Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, Healing, Trigger warning for past abuse, open letter, prose poetry, working through issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9317999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annegirlblythe/pseuds/annegirlblythe
Summary: Her feet are back on solid ground post "The End" but her inventive brain cannot shake the feeling of being pursued. She works towards healing in any way she can.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting from ff.net in honor of the new Netflix series starting today. Happy Friday the 13th!

one. there is something inherently too vulnerable in theatre - i have never been laid more bare than there. sometimes it felt as though those seven homes ran through the same script in different costumes, with you, the sadist anagram director yelling cut at the carnage. 

two. we disagree on the worst part of those years - they think it was the birthday in the jail cell - or the gun we found we knew how to work - they are wrong. i know that it was leaving the herpetological marvel and finding you on the driveway for the very first time - the morning we found we would never be safe again. 

three. i wonder if they are as scared as i am all the time. 

four. there is no trigger warning on a library transporting me to a desperate night - i do not even like collections of novels. i have to ask our sapphire poet to cut my hair - because we no longer needed to escape, and it made my palms sweat to tie it up like i used to. 

five. the psychiatrist whose name was far from alliterative, and whose manner was far from exaggerated when she watched me watching the door and said ptsd, began to explain the symptoms. i told her i knew what it meant, a phrase i knew how to say better than anything else i’ve said on this couch. 

six. it’s not that i distrust everyone who looks like you. you knew all too well how to make yourself look like someone else. it’s more like i distrust everyone. 

seven. you were what you were, but we never received an apology from the raven reaper who seemed always to deliver us into your lap,

eight. the cards and flowers don’t absolve anything, but it’s not as if they’re hurting either. it’s nice to know that i am no longer untouchable, but molding flowers from fiona and ambidextrous apologies from kevin seem to play into a narrative i have never believed. i am much too violent to play martyr, though i feel like one sometimes.

nine. sometimes i see someone on the street with one of your confounding features - and in the nearest doorway, i calm my heaving chest with the memory of sand in my fingernails as i dug your shallow grave and adorned it with a single closed eye. 

ten. i still hear you sometimes, when someone rings the doorbell or takes my arm to introduce me to a charming new acquaintance with a name like willful blindness, your miserable voice will ring through my head - a wheezy reminder that my life has not always belonged to me. 

eleven. my world is no longer crawlspace and narrow escape, my world is no longer anagram and winding nightmare, sugarbowl secrets and harpoon desperation - i never imagined we’d have our own cozy kitchen - such a symbol of home - nightmares seem so much further away when i wake with cheek against marble counter - i have not slept anywhere but our hearth in weeks. 

twelve. we received a letter from phil the optimist this morning, saying he heard about our return and how awful it must have been to be lost, but what a beautiful place to find ourselves. he sent us coupons.

thirteen. it doesn’t seem like it, but we are healing.


End file.
